To say I’m close to my friend Sarah would be an understatement. We’ve known each other for about nine years – she’s honorary auntie to my four-year-old son Milo, and she’s the first person I call if I’ve had a fight with my ex-partner, or if I need help deciding what to cook for dinner.
Since we met through friends, at a cocktail bar, she’s accompanied me on all my biggest adventures – from learning to kickbox in Thailand to hiking in the Sherwood Forest.
But for the past four months, and for the first time in our relationship, I’ve hidden something from her. My secret? I’ve had the Covid-19 vaccine. Two doses. AstraZeneca.
Nilufer Atik, left, has had two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, but was afraid to tell her friend Sarah, right, because the 40-year-old photographer believes that eating healthily and exercising will protect her from the killer virus
At this point, 90 per cent of British adults have had at least one jab, so it’s not exactly a controversial decision. Except for Sarah, it is.
A 40-year-old photographer from North London, she is one of the ten per cent of British adults who’ve not been vaccinated. And even though she’s been eligible since early summer, she has no intention of getting jabbed.
Sarah considers herself to be ‘spiritual’. She distrusts modern medicine – even refusing to take painkillers when she has a headache. It was no different with the vaccine: she thought it was just another example of drug companies pushing medication on us for profit.
As far as she’s concerned, she looks after herself with a stringent routine of exercise and eating fruit and veg, and this provides all the protection she needs. But I fear this is hugely misguided.
You might wonder how two people with such different approaches to life have ended up friends in the first place. But her views haven’t been entirely incompatible with my own, at least, until now.
We both have a passion for healthy living. We spend much of our time together at the gym.
According to Nilufer, her friend Sarah, right, considers herself to be ‘spiritual’. She distrusts modern medicine – even refusing to take painkillers when she has a headache. It was no different with the vaccine: she thought it was just another example of drug companies pushing medication on us for profit
But then, amid the rollout of the Covid vaccine – something I’d longed for, like most sensible people, as it would protect us personally and also signal the end of the pandemic – she starting posting anti-vaccine messages on social media. On Facebook, Sarah would share graphics describing the jab as ‘dangerous’, and when we spoke she started denying Covid was that serious.
I was concerned, given that she knew I’d had the disease and ended up in hospital.
In November, within the space of two weeks I went from having a scratchy cough to hardly being able to stand or talk.
In hospital, I was diagnosed with pneumonia and treated with intravenous antibiotics.
Even now I’m still hard of hearing in my right ear, my hair has fallen out and there’s been permanent change in my sense of taste and smell. But I’m alive, at least. Did my friend think I’d made the whole thing up?
Deep down, I was also terrified for Sarah.
I’d seen what this illness could do, and although it’s unlikely she’ll get seriously ill, it’s not impossible.
Despite this, every time the subject of Covid came up, I’d move the conversation elsewhere. It just felt so unbelievably awkward.
I was angry too, of course, but I just couldn’t face a showdown.
It all came to a head a few weeks ago, during a trip to a health spa. Sarah and another friend (also unjabbed) were embroiled in another one of their discussions, exchanging falsehoods about how the vaccine rollout was a ‘big ploy by the drug companies to make money’. She went on to suggest people who get a jab ‘are just looking for a quick fix’ rather than taking a long-term approach by getting fit and eating well.
‘I’d never put that poison in my body,’ she concluded.
At that point, I snapped. ‘I’ve had the vaccine,’ I announced. ‘I eat healthily and exercise daily, but I still got Covid and it nearly killed me. So I don’t agree with you.’
Sarah looked like I’d revealed a life-threatening diagnosis – but for me, the floodgates had opened: ‘The problem with most anti-vaxxers, is that most of them haven’t a clue what it’s like to get Covid, or lose someone they love to it.
For perhaps the first time in our nine-year friendship, I felt like we were on different pages. I quickly shut down the conversation, saying we should ‘agree to disagree’
‘It’s easy to sit there and say people shouldn’t be having the vaccine, but until you’ve had Covid, and seen what it can do, I don’t think you can really comment.’
Sarah gave as good as she got. She said she’d ‘accept’ some people get ill and die from Covid, ‘but it’s not as many as the Government is making out. By taking the jab, you’re doing exactly what the Government wants you to. And if the vaccine worked, why are so many vaccinated people still dying of Covid?’
For perhaps the first time in our nine-year friendship, I felt like we were on different pages. I quickly shut down the conversation, saying we should ‘agree to disagree’.
I didn’t want to fall out. After that day, I couldn’t stop thinking about our conversation, and what it would mean for our friendship.
I’m uncomfortable that Sarah, the loving, generous and kind person I knew, was choosing to put other people at risk by not having the jab.
Of course, what she says about the people who’ve been double-jabbed still catching Covid and dying is true. But it doesn’t mean what anti-vaxxers think it does. The vaccine isn’t perfect. It doesn’t offer 100 per cent protection, but nobody ever said it would.
Some people who’ve had it will still get very sick. And some people, for reasons unknown, will just not mount an immune response to the jab, and so will remain vulnerable. But these people remain a small minority.
In England, between January 2 and July 2, there were 51,281 Covid deaths. Of those, 640 occurred in people who were fully vaccinated
